


For Her

by Pureblood_Muggle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 14:33:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19770232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pureblood_Muggle/pseuds/Pureblood_Muggle
Summary: A moment in the aftermath of Astoria's death.





	For Her

**Author's Note:**

> Written to a drabble prompt on 'Fairest of the Rare' - Prompt: Lost Love.

_ Ministry of Magic _ _   
_ _ London,  _ _   
_ __ Saturday, 31st August 2019

_ Dear Mr Malfoy, _

_ On behalf of the whole Ministry of Magic, I am writing to express my deepest sympathies on the passing of your wife, Astoria.  _

_ Yours sincerely, _

_ Hermione Weasley _ _   
_ _ Minister for Magic _

Draco snorted in disgust. As if the Ministry cared at all that his beautiful wife had died. It was a generic card and he was probably one of the lucky ones who had the signature by the actual current Minister, instead of the Minister’s secretary’s scrawl. He threw it down on the desk in his study, rubbed a hand over his face and took another sip of his firewhisky. 

“Dad?” 

He quickly straightened up in his seat when he heard Scorpius’ voice. Draco made to reply but found he had to clear his throat before he could speak. By then, his now thirteen-year-old son had made his way into the study already.

“Scorpius.” He sounded cold to his own ears and only barely managed to suppress a flinch. 

“I can’t sleep.” Scorpius took a shuddering breath. “I miss mum.”

“Come.” He put his glass down and stood from his seat motioning for his son to follow him across to a couple of leather armchairs that sat in front of an ornate fireplace. Draco moved the chairs so that they were adjacent and sat down next to his son.

Scorpius sat in the armchair with his bare feet pulled up, hugging his arms around his legs and resting his chin on top of his knees. For a moment, he looked like a little child again, and not the full-blown, sassy, teenager that he was. 

“I miss her, too,” was what Draco eventually said, his voice not much more than a whisper. He was tired. Tired after having spent all last night crying over his wife’s dead body. Tired after having to talk to medi witches and wizards, and funeral directors when all he wanted to do was ignore all of it and have his wife back in his arms. Tired after fighting with Scorpius about going back to Hogwarts only two days after his mother had died, but desperate to cling to some kind of normality for his son. 

Scorpius nodded mutely, not bothering to wipe the tears away that were silently running down his cheeks. Draco had to bite the insides of his own cheeks and blink rapidly to stop his own from falling again. _Boys don’t cry, Draco._ His father’s voice echoed unbidden in his head. _No,_ he thought bitterly _, they do_.

He thought of something he read at the funeral parlour earlier, by an unknown author.    
_ “There are things that we don’t want to happen but have to accept, things we don’t want to know but have to learn, and people we can’t live without but have to let go.”  _

He would have to be the strong one, for his son. Together, they would grieve her. Together they would go on. For her.


End file.
